Dixon Street published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.
What brought brothers Harry and Lazarus Goldstein to Swindon at the end of the 19th century – and it wasn’t a job in the Works?
The brothers were born in Mlawa, a town in north eastern Poland, Harry in about 1848 and Lazarus in 1858, two of the six children of Isaac Goldstein, a Hebrew teacher and his first wife. Mlawa was annexed by Russia as part of the Congress Poland and remained Russian territory until the independence of Poland was declared in 1918. By the 1860s the Goldstein family were among the Jewish immigrants living in London’s East End where both brothers worked in the tailoring trade.
Harry’s first marriage was to Julia Hyams and had taken place in the Great Synagogue in Dukes Place in the City of London in 1868. In 1886 Harry petitioned for a divorce on the grounds of his wife’s adulterous behaviour. At the time of the 1891 census Harry was living at 49 Cannon Street Road with his three daughters Deborah, Jane and Rachel who had all followed him into the tailoring trade.
Harry arrived in Swindon after 1893 following his second marriage to Sophia Ashby, a woman half his age and by 1899 Harry and Sophia were living at 7 Dixon Street where their daughter Lilian Beatrice was born. The baby was baptised at St Marks Church on February 4, 1900. Sadly her mother died just three years later. Sophia Goldstein was buried on September 11, 1903 in Radnor Street Cemetery in plot E7025, a public grave. Harry died in the March quarter of 1909 but does not appear to have been buried in Radnor Street Cemetery. Following the death of her parents the couple’s daughter Lilian was adopted by William Smith, a warehouse man and his wife Alice, a family who had lived at 7 Dixon Street with the Goldsteins. In 1911 aged 11 years old Lilian was living with the Smith family at 20 Shelley Street.
The private life of Lazarus Goldstein is more difficult to circumnavigate. He married Sophia Davis in about 1879. The couple lived at various addresses in the East End but their long term home was at 38 Pereira Street in Bethnal Green where they were living in 1891 with their five children.
However, by 1906 Lazarus had also found his way to Swindon having followed a woman with whom he obviously had a long term relationship. The couple already had two children, Leonora and George, both born in the West Ham district of North London in 1901 and 1902 respectively. A third child, Esther Alice Goldstein was born in 1906 at the family home in Bright Street, Gorse Hill. It was here that Lazarus was taken suddenly ill and died in 1909.
Inquest and Verdict
An inquest was held on Monday last by Mr. A.L. Forrester (Coroner for North Wilts) on the body of Lazarus Goldstein, a tailor of 109 Bright Street, Gorse Hill, Swindon who was taken ill on Saturday afternoon at 1.30, and died the same night at 9.30.
The inquiry was held at the Frome Hotel, Hythe Road, Swindon, in consequence of the body having been brought to the mortuary.
Evidence of identification, and also as to the deceased being taken suddenly ill, was given. Dr. Reid, who conducted a post mortem, attributed death to valvular disease of the heart, and a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence was returned.
Swindon Advertiser Friday April 16, 1909.
Lazarus Goldstein was buried on April 14, 1909 in Radnor Street Cemetery, plot A931, a public grave. He was 49 years old.
While trying to find more about the Goldstein brothers before they left London and moved to Swindon I came across the work of a Lazarus Goldstein, a union activist in the East End tailoring trade.
The summer of 1889 saw extensive strike action in the East End of London, including a five week long shut down of the tailoring industry called by the Amalgamated Society of Tailors and two small pressers’ and machinists’ unions. The unions called for improvement in the working conditions of the small tailoring workshops, including a 12 hour day with a dinner and tea break, regulated overtime and trade union rates of pay with an end to ‘sweated’ labour.
The two names that live on in trade union history are William Wess, Secretary of the Tailors’ Strike Committee and Lewis Lyons, the Chair. In 1889 Lazarus represented the smaller London Tailors’ and Pressers’ Union.
[The following has been issued in the form of a large placard by the East End Tailors.]
Manifesto!
To The Tailoring Trade.
Fellow Workers, – On October 2nd, 1889, there was signed by representatives of the Employers and Employed, and counter signed by S. Montague, Esq., M.P., a document, in which it was agreed that the hours of labour should be from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with an interval of 1 hour for Dinner, and half-an-hour for Tea, and four hours’ Overtime only to be worked in a week. You are well aware how by one mean subterfuge and another the above regulations are being evaded. After the late strike the Employers’ Committee issued a large poster announcing that had they known what we required they would willingly have conceded our just demands; they have now had over 6 months to know what our just demands are, and we who work for them know how unjustly they have conceded them.
Fellow Workers,- Before we go any further into the Summer months, consider whether you would not be justified in dropping your work and refusing to work on any other terms than those gained after so hard a struggle in the late Strike. We hear around us the cry we have so long laboured for “the abolition of the Sweating System and Middlemen,” and it would be as well for those in our trade who employ us to be just to their workmen, lest we take up the cry and refuse to work for them on any terms, but compel them to be fellow workers side by side with us in workshops supplied by the manufacturer direct. We, in consequence, feel ourselves justified in calling upon you to show your determination not to work for those employers who work you the sweaters’ hours of 14 to 18 per day, but come out on the 4th of May, and strike against them shoulder to shoulder, and by combination show them you are not the willing tools they unfair sweaters say you are. That they will not give way to us unless forced is a foregone conclusion; they have surely had more than enough time already had they any intention of being fair. Long hours is the sweater’s first weapon, and that must once and for all times be wrested from them. So combine and tell them you will no longer be their slaves, let no worker in the trade be false to the others, and remember that unity is strength!
By Order of the Chairman and Committee,
Lazarus Goldstein, Secretary,
“The Hall,” 20, Booth Street, E.
No more Long Hours! Don’t forget 4th May!
The Tailor and Cutter May 1, 1890.
East London Tailors
To “The Evening News and Post.”
Sir – In your issue of Wednesday you have inserted a letter from Mr. Lewis Lyons, also a leaderette, as to the probable renewal of the strike. Mr Lyons writes to defend the action of the Machinists’ Union, and says we called a strike, and the managing committee remained at work, only 50 men out of 1,000 members responding to the call.
Mr Lyons must surely know that he is inaccurate, 92 employers having signed individually on the documents which we issued, and 92 employers surely employ more than 50 men.
The strike was not one of principle, but one calling out those only who worked the long hours. Again, Mr. Lyons states that the object of the Machinists’ Union is to abolish the sweater; but he is again wandering from the truth, their rules being in effect the same as ours, the objects of our Union as registered being to maintain the normal day’s work from 8 to 8 (subject to alteration), and obtain by the best legitimate means for its members clean and healthy workshops. Those should be their objects. In your leaderette you state under these circumstances, Mr. Lyons does not think the machinists are to blame for sticking to their original programme from which they have never varied. I am sorry to see they have not. It is the misfortune of the trade that they did not come out on strike against the long hours with us. By the majority of them working long hours and piecework they make the sweater worse than he is. While other clamour for a eight hours’ working day they are sticking to their programme and working long hours for the sweater, whom they wish to abolish, and yet do nothing to further it. I would like to see them do something myself; but we have to exhaust all peaceable means first, and if we cannot get short hours then I say away with the sweaters, but not till we give them the last trial by combination for better prices. – I am, etc.
Lazarus Goldstein
Sec London Tailors and Pressers Union
The Hall, 20 Booth street, E.C.
Evening News (London) – Thursday 29 May 1890
In 1893 Lazarus was the General Secretary of the London Tailor’s Federation. He also served as Secretary of The “German” City Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Tailors and in 1898 he was Secretary of the Jewish Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Tailors.
The compelling evidence would suggest that the union activist Lazarus Goldstein is the same man who came to Swindon in around 1906 and died here three years later. I am presently in contact with a descendant of the family living in the USA who is trying to establish if they are one and the same person.
A 1960s photo of Bright Street, Gorse Hill published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.
Radnor Street Cemetery 